| Will changing publishing houses affect the marketing of my books? |
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Q: I am considering changing publishing houses. How will a move affect the marketing of my books? The publisher you are leaving will continue to respond to marketing opportunities for your backlist titles, such as co-op ad requests and media requests for review copies, but is unlikely to proactively market your books once you’ve left. Publishers devote most of their attention to authors who plan a longterm relationship with the house and have numerous backlist titles. That’s because they can promote an author’s new book and have their backlist titles benefit too. If you are unhappy with your current publisher and want to make a change, you’ll probably want to check what kind of marketing commitment the new house will make. As a published author with a track record of sales, you should be able to convince them to make more of an investment than they would for a new author. If they are not willing to do as much marketing as you’d like, consider whether there are things you can do yourself and ask if they will cooperate with you on some of your ideas. Ask about the different levels of marketing they give to authors. Find out what more they can do when you have five or ten titles on their list. To speed the process, you may want to consider creating an “instant” backlist for yourself by doing a series. Publishers are willing to make a bigger investment in marketing a series because the cost can be amortized over several titles. 2:3/93 |